[Southern California Permaculture] ACTION ALERT = desalination plant -Speak out to protect marine life in the Santa Barbara Channel!

[Margie Bushman, Santa Barbara Permaculture Network]

ACTION ALERT = desalination plant -Speak out to protect marine life 
in the Santa Barbara Channel!
Thursday, January 29 at 9am on the 4th floor of the Santa Barbara 
County building (105 E. Anapamu St.).

Help protect marine life in the Santa Barbara Channel by testifying 
at a public hearing

At the request of the City of Santa Barbara, the Central Coast 
Regional Water Quality Control Board (RWQCB) has proposed a permit 
amendment to allow the City to draw seawater into its desalination 
plant through an open ocean intake.

Channelkeeper has been lobbying for an investigation of the 
feasibility of drawing seawater into the desalination plant through a 
subsurface intake instead. Open ocean intakes kill billions of marine 
organisms, whereas subsurface intakes virtually eliminate marine life 
mortality. The State Water Board is about to adopt a new policy to 
require every new and expanded desalination facility in California to 
utilize a subsurface intake as the environmentally superior 
technology unless it is adequately demonstrated to be infeasible.

The California Water Code requires that desalination facilities use 
the best available site, design, technology, and mitigation measures 
feasible to minimize the intake and mortality of all forms of marine 
life. The RWQCB failed to certify that the City complied with this 
requirement when it first permitted the desalination plant in 1991, 
so they are now seeking to make a retroactive determination of 
compliance so that the City can begin operating the facility again 
with the outmoded and environmentally harmful open ocean intake.


Please stand up for marine life in the Santa Barbara Channel by 
testifying at the RWQCB hearing on January 29. Here are some talking points:

Tell the RWQCB why you care about/depend on healthy marine resources 
in the Santa Barbara Channel and ask them to fulfill their mandate to 
protect those resources.

Urge the RWQCB to conduct or require a present-day analysis of the 
feasibility of a subsurface intake - not one based on the best 
technology available in 1991 - and to require the City to use a 
subsurface intake if it is found to be feasible in order to minimize 
the mortality of marine life caused by the City's desalination plant.

Urge the RWQCB to require the City to implement the best mitigation 
feasible to minimize the intake and mortality of all forms of marine 
life caused by the City's desalination plant as required by the 
California Water Code by accurately quantifying and fully offsetting 
that mortality.

THANK YOU for speaking out to hold the RWQCB and the City accountable 
for their duty to protect marine life!
http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?ca=edd1d1ae-51f3-449c-ac7e-abcbc6cd2e54&c=f0a32c50-41d2-11e3-a5ec-d4ae529ce48a&ch=f1eb3cb0-41d2-11e3-a666-d4ae529ce48a


Additional information:

Desalination Fact Sheet
The RWQCB hearing agenda (see Item No. 9)
The RWQCB's Staff Report on the item
The RWQCB's Draft Permit Amendment (skip to Attachment G starting on page 131)
Santa Barbara Channelkeeper's Comment Letter on the Draft Permit Amendment
The RWQCB's response to our comments
The City of Santa Barbara's Comment Letter


Santa Babara Permaculture Network Logo

(805) 962-2571
P.O. Box 92156, Santa Barbara, CA 93190
margie at sbpermaculture.org
http://www.sbpermaculture.org

P Please consider the environment before printing this email

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